


Faust Was a Teenage Girl

by theorangewitch



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 15:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16478534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangewitch/pseuds/theorangewitch
Summary: Nicoletta Ruiz-Owens tells her friend Jeremy Marlowe how she acquired her spooky powers.





	Faust Was a Teenage Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Day 31 of Angstober - Free Choice! I chose loneliness. I wrote this a while back but I thought it was relevant for today because a) it's sad and b) it's spooky. And it's Halloween! 
> 
> As usual, the link to the full list of Angstober prompts is available in the author's note of the first work in this series.

“Sooo, Jeremy Marlowe. Jeremy Marlowe wants to know how Nicoletta Ruiz-Owens got her magic powers,” Nicoletta teased, sidling over to the rocking chair in the corner of her living room.

  
“I mean, yeah,” Jeremy replied. “You said you’d tell me, and your parents are asleep, so.”

  
Nicoletta laughed and shook her head. “I’m just messing with you, Marlowe, I’ll tell you. It started at a party, ‘cause most things do, don’t they?” The lamp behind her obscured her face in shadow, but Jeremy could tell that her gaze was cast downward, the way everyone casts their gaze when they remember something that hurts. 

  
“They do,” Jeremy replied. 

  
“It was a party I had no business being at. It was freshman year, and I was insignificant. Just some random goth girl who nobody really paid any mind. There was this guy in my art club, who I thought I had a crush on because he was moderately okay looking and he was nice to me. His name was Jason Smalls.” 

  
“Jason Smalls. What a douchey fucking name.”

  
“Exactly!” Nicoletta giggled. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Anyway, one day he asked me if I was going to this party and I said I was even though I hadn’t even known it was happening until that very moment. So I went home and went on Facebook and found out the details and the next thing I knew I was going.”

  
“How impulsive of you,” Jeremy remarked. “That doesn’t sound like the Nicoletta I know.”

  
“I guess I learned my lesson back then. My mom was so happy when I told her about it. She was overjoyed that I was making enough friends to be invited to a party. I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t invited, not really. I also didn’t tell her that there probably wouldn’t be parents there.” 

  
“There’s a lot your mom doesn’t know, huh?” 

  
“There’s a lot my mom doesn’t know,” Nicoletta admitted. “Anyway, I got there and I found Jason. And turns out he wasn’t a freshman like me. Like I thought he was. He was a junior. I don’t know if he was straight up lying by omission or just didn’t know that I had the wrong idea. And he was hanging out with all these junior girls, who were tall and thin and beautiful with perfectly winged eyeliner and perfect red lipstick and they invited me to play a game with them. I thought—I hoped—that it was spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven or something and I was worried it would be beer pong or shot roulette, but it wasn’t any of those. It was a ouija board, a nice wooden one too, not one of those cardboard ones that Hasbro or some other motherfucker sells. 

“It all gets kinda fuzzy after that. I don’t remember sitting down with them and actually messing with the thing. I don’t remember going to play with it by myself in the bathroom. I don’t remember going into the bathroom at all. But suddenly I was there, and I had the ouija board and planchette in front of me, and also a boy.”

  
“A boy? Jason?” Jeremy asked. 

  
“No, I’d never seen him before,” Nicoletta replied. “He looked like my brother, if I had a brother, but I don’t. Like me, but a boy, and a couple years older. We even had the same pattern of freckles.” Nicoletta brought her hand to her cheek, as if remembering what the boy’s face looked like. “And he. He asked me if I needed help.”

  
“With what?”

  
“That was my exact same question! He responded with, _Anything_. Anything. And then he asked me if I was lonely, if I was hurt, if I needed protection.”  
“All of the above, I’m guessing.”

  
“You’re guessing correctly,” Nicoletta said. “I was so, so lonely, Marlowe. I hadn’t had a real friend since elementary school. And so I told him yes, yes I was, and even just admitting to that made me break down in tears. And then.” Nicoletta trailed off, staring at her hands. The light behind her flickers, dousing the two of them in momentary darkness.

  
“And then?” Jeremy prompted.

  
“And then he hugged me. He hugged me and held me and told me that everything was going to be okay. I know it’s stupid, but in that moment, I’d never felt so loved. And then he told me how he was going to help me. He was going to give me three gifts: sense, intuition, and protection, and in return, he would ask for three favors. Three little favors, he said, that’s all. And I didn’t know any better, so I agreed. I agreed so fucking quickly. And then, he reached up and he traced this star on my forehead with his finger, and I could see in the bathroom mirror that it showed up, in black ink as if he’d drawn it with Sharpie. _This_ , he said, _is for sense, for knowledge. It will allow you to connect with other people better, to read them better_. Then he drew a heart, upside-down, on my chest, right on my sternum. _This is for intuition_ , he said, _This will let you trust your gut more. Your gut is your greatest ally, after all_.” 

  
“My IBS would beg to differ,” Jeremy snarked.

  
Nicoletta laughed, then continued, “And finally, he drew two X’s, one on each hand. _These are for protection. Now you can protect yourself from those who would hurt you_ , he said. I asked him how to use them, and he told me that when I needed them, they’d kick in.”

  
“And you think the boy was a demon?”

  
“It’s my best guess. He offered me something I wanted, in return for something he wanted. It wasn’t my soul, at least, but from what I’ve learned about demons since then, the favors won’t be too pleasant when he asks for them.” 

  
“What if you refuse to do them?” Jeremy asked. 

  
“I assume he’d hurt me, or my parents. Or one of you guys. Whatever happens, it won’t be pretty.” Nicoletta smiled up at Jeremy. “But don’t worry about me, Marlowe. I’ve made my bed. I’m just lucky that I haven’t had to lie in it yet. 

  
“Okay, but I have a couple of questions. I thought ouija boards were fake, right? Like, they were made up by some games company. How could you actually contact a demon with them?”

  
“Just because they weren’t made to purposefully contact the other side doesn’t mean that they can’t work that way,” Nicoletta explained. “It’s about the belief, Marlowe. The belief and the want. I believed the ouija board would work, and I wanted something, desperately, so the demon came to give it to me.”

  
“I guess that makes sense,” Jeremy said. “But if that kind of evil exists, if demons exist, wouldn’t there be some kind of good force to counteract it? Like, I dunno, angels or something?” 

  
“C’mon, Marlowe, think about it,” Nicoletta said. “Just think about it. Like, take humans for example. Among us, pure evil exists—pedophiles, serial killers, genocidal dictators—but pure good does not. Everyone has flaws, nobody is perfect. It’s a fact of life. Why would the supernatural world be any different? There are no angels, Jeremy. Of that I’m certain.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Despite this being the end of October, this isn't the end of Angstober! I'll be finishing the prompts I missed last weekend in the coming few days, so stay tuned!


End file.
